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It’s 2017 and cybersecurity affects our society daily. Come by HacDC in the morning for a layperson’s introduction to cybersecurity and gain some insight to the problems and solutions behind recent headline-grabbing hacks. Then, after lunch, we’ll delve into more advanced technical topics and some policy discussions with a lineup of invited speakers. Details below.

Morning (10:30am): The introductory session in the morning will introduce concepts and terminology of computer security that will help you make sense of recent news headlines and policy discussions surrounding cybersecurity. We’ll start by explaining software flaw concepts exploited by malicious software, and go over common online scams that deliver malicious software and enable cyberattacks. We’ll go over what you can do to stay safer online. We’ll introduce technologies that already help keep us safe every day like encryption and digital certificates, and technologies for secure, private messaging.

Afternoon (1:00pm): In the afternoon we’ll delve into more advanced technical topics and host invited speakers for presentations on burgeoning security concerns, internet freedom, security law and policy. Guest speakers and participants are Micah Sherr of Georgetown University, Lindsay Beck of Open Technology Fund, Ross Schulman of the Open Technology Institute and guests from Mozilla and CommunityRED.

Cryptoparty, Morning Session

Saturday, Jan 28, 2017, 10:30 AM

HacDC1525 Newton St NW, Suite 212 (use lot entrance) Washington, DC

20 Hackers Attending

It’s 2017 and cybersecurity affects our society daily. Come by HacDC for a layperson’s introduction to cybersecurity and gain some insight to the problems and solutions behind recent headline-grabbing hacks.We will introduce concepts and terminology of computer security, common scams, how to improve your security, how encryption works and how it’…

Cryptoparty, Afternoon Session

Saturday, Jan 28, 2017, 1:00 PM

HacDC1525 Newton St NW, Suite 212 (use lot entrance) Washington, DC

14 Hackers Attending

After the morning’s introduction to cybersecurity, join us for an afternoon of presentations and discussions on online privacy, security, US policy, law and other topics.Micah Sherr of Georgetown University will share his work on “Hidden Voice Commands,” which is becoming more and more relevant with services like Siri, OK Google and Amazon Echo.L…

The HacDC CryptoParty will cover topics aimed at helping you keep your data safe by learning how to use basic cryptography tools to protect the content of your data and — of particular interest because of recent revelations— to thwart common forms of surveillance.

Like most of us, your life is probably pretty normal and of course you have nothing to hide. You may even think that allowing the government to read citizens’ email is the price we all have to pay for security.

But what if increased surveillance actually doesn’t keep us safer? What if the mere specter of surveillance suppresses your free expression? And what if you do have something that you want to keep private — for instance your sexual orientation, health status, political views, or that you’ve decided to stop practicing your religion?

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. —Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo

For those folks that saw the Biomolecular Cryptology talk at This article in Technology Review talks about how DNA can be used to also encode data. This approach leverages some deep properties of DNA biology, transcription and translation to enable a “public key” approach in which proteins (or their virtual equivalent) can be exchanged as a kind of public key, allowing the decoding of the underlying data encoded in DNA. It is an interesting compliment to the so-called DNA stegnography, in which messages are encoded directly in the DNA bases, in something like a Caesar Cipher.

The paper appears to have some weaknesses in the cryptography, but I am nowhere near expert enough to be an effective judge- I wish that the paper has better references. Perhaps some of our HacDC cryptography experts would be interested in giving it a go!

Had a bunch of really interested folks at the “Hack the Genome, the age of biomolecular cryptography” talk today at Shmoocon. Lots of fantastic ideas and great discussions afterwards with interested hackers. It is great to see how much creative knowledge and energy there is in our community. I was asked to share my slides, so I have put them up on my site over at Radio Free Genome, and you can download the presentation directly from here.

Approach on the 16th St side of the building. Look for the red doors. We are on the third floor. Follow the signs to our space after signing in with the guard. Before visiting unannounced, call to see if anyone is at the space.Phone: 202-556-4225 (HACK)